Counting Crows set to make a flap in Brum

Acclaimed San Francisco band to play Birmingham O2 Academy

San Francisco rockers Counting Crows have announced their first UK tour in over 4 years - and they're coming to Birmingham's O2 Academy.

The multi-platinum seven-piece will bring their live show to Birmingham on Friday, April 19, and will also be playing shows in Bristol, London, Manchester and Glasgow, after touring in Australia and a string of European dates.

Counting Crows tickets go on sale at 9am on Friday, January 25, and are available from www.livenation.co.uk or www.ticketmaster.co.uk.

“All I could say when I saw the plans for a UK/EU tour was ‘It's about time,” says Adam Duritz. “It's hard to explain to fans why bands occasionally let so much time pass between visits.

"The truth is sometimes life just gets in the way and, before you know it, it's been a few years. Personally, I'm just glad we're going back. I have a lot of great memories of past tours. Remembering where we've been always gets me excited about where we're going.”

The tour follows the release in 2012 of Underwater Sunshine (or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation), a collection of more and less known songs ranging from the 1960s to our days. Produced by Counting Crows and Shawn Dealey, Underwater Sunshine features tracks written by artists such as Big Star, Gram Parsons, Tender Mercies, Kasey Anderson and The Faces.

A new live album will be released to coincide with the dates.

Counting Crows formed in 1991 in the San Francisco Bay area and they have sold over 20 million albums to date. They had 5 Top 20 studio albums in the UK (three of them charting in the Top 10) and all five hitting top five on the Billboard 200. The current line up features Adam Duritz (vocals), David Bryson (guitar), Charles Gillingham (keyboards), Dan Vickrey (guitar), Jim Bogios (drums), David Immergluck (guitar) and Millard Powers (bass).

Widely remembered for their 1993 seven times platinum debut release August And Everything After - including hit single “Mr Jones” - Counting Crows more recently had a US No.1 with “Accidentally In Love”, featured on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, which was nominated in 2005 for a Grammy Award, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award.

Their most recent studio album, Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings was released to critical and popular acclaim in March 2008 and charted at No. 12 in the UK.